


Shriven

by flamewarrior



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Religious Themes & References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-04
Updated: 2006-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-13 07:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/134325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamewarrior/pseuds/flamewarrior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Muggle makes a strong impact on Draco's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shriven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snottygrrl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snottygrrl/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Love Lasts](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/1895) by snottygrrl. 



I remember the moment I realised, when I knew for certain.

I was sitting in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place reading a book on curse-breaking when he walked in, carrying himself with that odd combination of slouch and tense alertness. Heat washed over me, prickled in my gut and up the back of my neck, made my face warm. The candlelight reflected from his hair and his glasses and I caught myself starting to stare.

Ever since I'd arrived at the Black family home two months before I hadn't been able to stop myself from gazing at him, absorbing the colour of his skin, the curve of his Adam's apple, the way his emotions showed so clearly in his eyes even when the rest of his face was still and stoney.

If I hadn't become so accustomed to examining my actions and reactions, I might have hidden from myself and put it down to simple lust. But self-deception was a luxury I could no longer allow. I rolled the facts around in my mind as he helped himself to a cup of tea: the way my stomach jolted when he looked at me, the way he held my full attention when he was in the same room - even when I was looking determinedly at something else, the way a chill crept through my entire body whenever he was late returning from a mission, the way my heart warmed when he spoke a friendly word to me, the way the simple knowledge of his presence in the house chased away my night terrors.

In that moment I was certain. This was love.

After that, I was alert to every shifting mood of his eyes, looking for any sign that he had noticed me the way I noticed him. It became clear to me as I observed him over the following days and weeks that he had. It was just as clear that under normal circumstances he would never have acknowledged it.

But these were not normal circumstances, and when, one evening at dinner, with the whole Order of the Phoenix gathered around the table, I let my hand, out of sight, oh so casually trail against his thigh, he moved his leg: not away, as I had prepared myself to accept, but towards me, until we were touching from hip to ankle, separated only by two thin layers of fabric.

It was glorious in the beginning, the heat of our bodies chasing away the cold of war. Then it became desperate, as we forced that heat to burn what we had to do out of our hearts and our souls. But as desperate as it was, I knew it would be harder once the fighting stopped. I was prepared for it, prepared for his fear and his guilt, prepared for the battle his self-doubt would put up to prove itself right, to build walls between us that would divide us completely.

After all, I'd been through those kinds of feelings myself.

When I ran from Hogwarts, curses and flames leaping behind me, Severus hid me for three days. Then he gave me a choice which wasn't really a choice. He said that I could remain in Voldemort's service and let him use me over and over again to punish my parents until he got bored and killed all three of us, or I could take up Dumbledore's offer. Either way, he told me, Voldemort would likely kill my parents, in the end.

He Apparated me to some non-descript Muggle street. At least, it's non-descript in my memory. Maybe it was really bustling and bright with eclecktrick lights. Maybe the sun was shining and Muggles were dancing around me. I didn't notice. I was full of fear, still in shock from that night on the Astronomy Tower and the certainty of my parents' imminent death.

He took me down a side street to a house next to a church, telling me he'd be back in two weeks for my answer. He rapped smartly on the door and Disapparated before I even registered what was happening. I stood there, looking at green paint peeling off to reveal wood and undercoat.

The slow thud of footsteps approached from inside the house, and the door opened to reveal a tall, balding, middle-aged man in corduroys and an open-necked shirt. He looked at me with eyes made small by his glasses, and nodded to himself.

"Well, come in then, lad."

I stood there, staring at him, until he took hold of my wrist and pulled me indoors. He stepped behind me to shut the door. I shivered.

"So," his voice came from behind me, vowels long and flat, "you're Sev's little trouble-maker then are you?"

I turned my head slightly to answer, but he carried on speaking.

"We'll look after you here, lad. Come through to the kitchen and I'll ask Jean to get you a cup of tea and maybe a bite to eat, hm?"

I blinked at him as he came into view again, smiling in an encouraging sort of way. He sauntered up a hallway to the left and I followed. There was nothing else to do. Severus had taken my wand.

In the kitchen, a dull-looking woman in an overall was wiping down surfaces. I assumed she must be Jean. After a single, sour glance in my direction, she ignored me completely.

"Will you be wanting a cup of tea then, Father?" she asked.

"Yes, Jean, that'd be grand, and one for the lad here as well." The man looked at me again. "This is Jean, she's my housekeeper. I don't suppose Sev told you my name?"

I kept my silence and shook my head slightly.

"Ah, well, he always was one for mystery. I'm Father Geoffrey, parish priest you know. Now take a seat, lad, take a seat."

I did as I was told. I watched the priest as he pulled out a chair for himself and sat astride it, hands resting on its wooden back.

"Sev's sent this young man to us for a bit of looking after, Jean."

Jean made a noise like "harrumph" and set about ostentatiously filling the kettle and setting it on the hob. I looked at Father Geoffrey with a scepticism that I hoped showed in my face. Whether or not it did, I don't know. The Father just carried on smiling at me over the backs of his hands.

After our cup of tea, which we drank in silence but for Jean's clattering of pots, I didn't see the priest for quite some time. I ate and I slept, but with nothing to do in between, I took to sitting around the house like a sulky teenager. By the end of the third day, Jean had had enough and shooed me out of her domain. Standing on the porch, I looked around me. In front of me was the garden and the street, to my right the church.

It was a very long time since I'd been into a church. We were never a mass every Sunday family, much as Mama would have liked it, and I'd never believed much of anything beyond God being out there, somewhere. I still don't. But even back then I was sensible enough to stay where Severus had put me, and instinct told me that indoors would be safer than out.

The door of the church opened with no whisper of noise. I was startled, expecting a creak and groan from the Victorian oak. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. The building was light and airy, no stained glass to darken the sun's light. There was a small bowl of holy water by the door. At the other end of the church, a single candle burnt below the statue of the Virgin Mary and another, with an eerily even flame, showed where the Host was kept.

I sat down on a pew, watching dust motes, hands clasped between my knees. I hadn't even begun to give Severus' question my attention. I knew I would have to do so at some point. The alternative was to risk everything to blind chance, the flip of a coin. No Malfoy had ever done that.

But I could not bend my mind to it. Every time I tried, my attention would slip and wander away from the question at hand, as if the thought itself were Disillusioned. I looked at the statue of Mary, at the candle-flame burning at her feet. They meant nothing to me, but the sight of them, the curve of her robes, the flickering of the flame, soothed me.

I don't know how long I sat there, staring. It must have been quite a while, because when I noticed Father Geoffrey standing beside me, my eyes were dry. He took off his glasses to rub them clean on his handkerchief, and looked down at me. His eyes were so different without the frames and distorting glass. He looked at me as if he could see everything I'd ever done, yet loved me anyway. I found myself trembling.

"You alright, lad?"

He took a step towards me. His glasses were back on his face, but I was still shaking. I swallowed.

"No," I said, "I don't think I am."

He sat down in the pew in front of me, resting his chin on his hands upon its back as he'd done with the chair in the kitchen.

"Why don't you tell me about it?"

I found myself nodding.

"Come on, come with me."

He stood and I followed suit. He led me down to the side of the church and into a small room, gesturing for me to sit on one of the wooden chairs. He sat down himself, at an angle to me.

"Not exactly traditional, but... well, then. Here we are."

He looked at me again, through his glasses this time, but still with that look. My hands had started to shake visibly. I stared at them and began to tell him: about my father, about the threat hanging over my parents' lives and my own, about trying and failing to kill, about the gang I let into school, about how I'd been so sure it was the right thing to do, because my parents couldn't be wrong, could they? But now they were going to die anyway, and I couldn't go back to that gang, but I couldn't go the other way either, because either way my parents were going to die and it would be my fault.

I felt sick. Whatever happened, my parents were going to die and it would be my fault. My head span and I let it drop into my hands. My whole body was shaking and I couldn't, wouldn't breathe.

Then a large dry hand was prizing my fingers away from my face and wrapping them around something soft and blue.

"Grab hold of it. Scream into it if you need to. Give it a good thump."

I took a breath and buried my head in the cushion. A moan escaped me. I breathed in again, breathing out another moan that became a wail. I was rocking backwards and forwards and the wail would not stop. It went on and on, until I had to breathe in again, and then I was sobbing, shaking and rocking and wailing and sobbing. It went on forever. In those inhuman moments I had no thoughts, no emotions, only grief and pain, driving through me in great convulsions.

When the last waves had passed and just the slightest tremor remained in my lips and knees, I sat with the cushion on my lap, watching my fingers resting there on the sodden velvet, twisting around one another. Father Geoffrey handed me his handkerchief and I blew my nose.

"So, Draco," he said, and I looked up in shock. I had not told him my name, "all of this you've told me, what out of it is your responsibility? What of all this burden is yours to shoulder? Yours to repent?"

I stared at him dumbly, lips slack, brow furrowed.

Finally, "I don't know," my voice cracking on the words.

He nodded briefly.

"When you do know, lad, then you'll know what to do."

His gaze remained serious but a hint of a smile showed on his lips and in his eyes. His voice was soft.

"Don't fret over what you've done in the past. God will forgive you, or He won't, it's nothing you can change. What you need to concentrate on is what choices you make now, and their consequences."

His voice suddenly became fervent, intense, although his face did not change.

"Remember that love is stronger than fear; love is even stronger than death. Never, ever doubt that. We cannot stop death, but we can love, and we can seek redemption."

I swallowed. My voice was a whisper.

"How can I seek redemption?"

The intensity in his voice seemed to have transferred to his gaze and I could not look away.

"Listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to you. Be still and listen for Him in your heart."

My head span again and I closed my eyes. I understood little of what he'd said, just a few words. Those words marked me indelibly. Choice and consequence. Love, stronger than fear or death. Redemption. Listen. Be still and listen.

And I did. Over the days that followed, I would go into the church when there was no-one there. I would light a candle and sit myself down on a pew and be still and listen. I would sit for hours. Some days, I would come back to the house only for food and sleep. Jean looked cross then, but Father Geoffrey, if he was there, always had the warmth of a smile or an approving glance for me. I, too, began to smile sometimes.

Nothing spectacular happened as I sat. I received no flashes of inspiration, no visions, no voices from the stillness telling me what to do. Often it was boring and I would fidget and twitch and have to stop myself from rising to find distractions. Then, when I had got past wanting distractions, it would become painful, guilt unfolding like a poisonous flower to fill the emptiness. But I followed the priest's instruction - Be still. Listen. - and eventually the guilt opened out to its fullest extent and melted away.

And there it was. Love.

Love, so strong it almost hurt. Love for my mother, for my father. Love for my friends, for my teachers, for my rivals. Love even for myself. I was filled with a wild elation that was nonetheless still and peaceful. I can't explain it: how, when I opened my eyes, everything took on a glow, everything sang, and yet was just as before.

When I came into the house and met the priest in the kitchen I didn't say anything, but when he looked at me, he knew. He came up to me, took both my hands and gazed into my eyes for a long time. Then he gently tugged my arms and said, "You'll do." He was smiling.

Severus returned two days later, and I told him my choice. I have never regretted it. If Harry hadn't responded to me, I still would not have regretted it. I could not have done anything else. I was not willing to go back to a life ruled by fear. At Spinner's End and at Grimmauld Place, all through the war and ever since, I have done what I must to make sure that fear never rules my life again.

Every day, I am still, and I listen.

Even so, it wasn't easy in the months after the war, remembering the truth, staying centred in the face of Harry's criticisms, his ranting, his stumbling, fearful apologies, knowing he'd cycle back into criticism again soon enough. But gradually, he started to believe that what we had was more than heat and clash and shattering, was more than moments of bliss stolen from terror. Gradually he began to accept that he was worth loving, that what we had between us was worth another day, another week, another year. Finally, at the heart of all the drama, underneath all of his fear and guilt, he found peace, and me still there with him, and at last he knew it was okay. He was safe and I wasn't going anywhere, not without him.

And here we are, in the garden, in the sun, in the middle of our life together. He's watching me and I raise my book to hide the curl of my lips. His eyes on me never fail to warm me, body and soul, and slowly I lower my book and share my secret smile. He flushes and we hold each other's gaze for a second, an eternity. Here, in moments like these, is the certainty that what we have, what we've built together is strong enough that nothing, not even another war, could rip it apart.

Not even death.

Because what we have is love, and love, true love, lasts.


End file.
